Notes / Domino 10

At IBM Connect 2017, the message from IBM was “Notes/Domino 9.0 support will not end for at least 4 more years”. Which to me sounded a bit like simply a stay of execution. Not so much a positive message as just a non-negative one. But Ed Brill has published a blog post on the IBM Social Business blog that gives more clarity to the message and I think this helps.

In whitewater kayaking we say “look at the line, not at the rock”, meaning look where you want to go, not at what you are trying to avoid. If you watch the rock, you’re probably going to hit it. But if you focus on the line through the rapid that you want to take, you will likely do well.

With that in mind, Ed’s blog post does a better job of looking at the line. There is talk of should there be a Notes/Domino 10. Currently the plan is to stick with the version format 9.0.1 FPx where FP now means Feature Pack instead of Fix Pack. In this way we will get frequent releases that include new features as well as fixes, mirroring the cloud releases. On the other hand, it seems to leave Notes/Domino stuck on version 9 forevermore. Wouldn’t this be a great time to update the versioning altogether to align more with the steady stream of feature packs? Other software does this, like Firefox, which is now on version 52.0. N/D FP 8 was just released and FP 9 is already under development. So perhaps it could start with FP 10 being simply Notes/Domino 10?

I would also love to see Notes/Domino 10, but my guess is that it won’t happen because of the deployment-rules in IBM. A new major release enforces a whole bunch of other rules, such as teaching support, renewing licenses-logic, updating documentation and what-not. A minor update slips past most of this and is much easier to ship compared to a full blown new version. So, in essence will you receive updates faster and more often with the Feature Pack-style updates. We just have to learn to love the updates by their build numbers and feature pack numbers 🙂

In the technology industry, if you aren’t moving forward, you’re falling behind. Or more accurately, if you don’t appear to be moving forward, you’re falling behind. Did IBM handcuff itself so badly by building a wall of red tape around the version control that for all practical purposes it can’t create new versions? It sounds like IBM’s legal and marketing departments need to catch up to the 21st century. Perhaps Watson could help with that?
Whatever happens, we cannot go on forever saying “version 9.0.1 feature pack XX”.

Just to comment on the second comment – IBM’s legal and marketing aren’t the issue. It’s a set of standards across the company for what it means to ship a “new release.” In reality, this becomes less and less of an issue in the future – in the cloud there are no version numbers. In hybrid cloud, we can do continuous delivery. So it matters for Notes/Domino but not so much for other offerings or anything new in the future.

As I said in our chat, I am looking at a number of options to get off the 9.0.1 FP X nomenclature.